co-authors are other participants quoted. I haven't changed content of thr replies, but quoted it part by part in my replies, interspersing each reply after relevant part. Sometimes I have also changed the order of replies with my retorts, so as to prioritate logical/topical over temporal/chronological connexions. That has also involved conflating more than one message. I have also left out mere insults.

Russian Orthodox sources from same time (under Lithuanian supremacy or under the Czars) would have given similar age limits.

Resist Meta-Man!

Evolutionary biologists are discussing whether we have passed or will be passing the next evolutionary big step. Resumée of big steps so far - according to evolution:

1.) self reproducing molecules join hands in protocaryatide cells;

2.) those in eucaryatide cells;

3.) those in many celled animals;

4.) ants, bees and maybe now men join hands in hives;

5.) not to mention that all the train companies ruined by Vanderbilt, all the petrol companies ruined by Rockefeller and so on were bought up by the capitalists who ruined them - unlike the other steps one that has really been ascertained.

If humanity becomes a hive, it is termed a "meta man"*. Of which men all over earth, domestic animals, machines, buildings, textiles, satellite communications all over the globe are organs, just as DNA inmitochondria, mitochondria in our cells, our cell in ourselves. The final steps to meta man would include:

a) mankind stopping wars between its men,

b) mankind regulating the procreation of men,

c) the development of a consciousness of mankind, that is really the consciousness of noone in particular, reached by immediate majority votes on the smallest details of things which in their whole are beyond - or are put beyond - single men.

This last step is supposed to be a parallel to the human consciousness being the consciousness of no brain cell in particular, only the sum of all brain cells in general.

But this is not what human consciousness is, man being - unlike brain cells and majority votes - endowed with reason, and it will not work like this for "meta man". The elimination of wars and the central control of human fertility - on lines suggested by Monsanto seeds, that will grow and yield fruit only for one generation, after which next year's seed will have to be bought from Monsanto - this will, if at all, not happen because all humans vote through these losses of independence, case for case, though it could be fooled into voting through the principle or a seemingly reasonable application of it in a panicked situation: no, this will, if at all, be controlled by an elite that considers itself to be for mankind what the brain is for a single man.

The simile between man and his organs on one hand, society and its men on the other, is ancient. So is the simile between a leg that has to be amputated for the good of man and a criminal that has to be executed - maybe hunted down first - for the good of society. It was older than the Church and it was used by both Christ and St Paul about the Church: the parallel to execution being excommunication. The problem begins when the simile, a biological picture for non-biological things, is introduced into biology and taken for the biological principle for a new animal. When birth, food, security of life or death of individual men all depend on the BIOLOGICAL needs of a single animal humanity that is fiction - or a misused concept that parodies and hides the real biological needs. Would you like to be "amputated" - killed, starved or sterilised - because you did not dedicate yourself whole-heartedly to serve the hive? Resist "meta man". Resist the beast.

*Source for the speculations: www.pm-magazin.de the paper version of January 2005 issue.

If the Catholic Church sees the Bishop of Rome as their Pope, and they see Peter as the first Bishop of Rome.,..then what difference does it make what non-catholics see as the first Bishop of Rome since they are not in communion with either the Pope or the Church?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

3h ago

Some do see Peter as first bishop of Rome, but not yet as Pope, and I’d like to know on their view which “bishop of Rome” started to claim papal prerogatives and get them.

Some do not even admit Peter was even in Rome, taking “Babylon” not as code for a city on Tiber, but as literal for a city on Euphrates. I’d like to know when they claim:

Rome started to have bishops

Roman bishops started to claim jurisdictional succession from Peter and Paul

Roman bishops claiming such started to claim and get Papal prerogatives.

My hoped for answer is, they won’t be able to agree.

Al Lundy

50m ago

Your understanding of Pope's and Bishops is incorrect. The Bishop of Rome is the Pope, the successor of the seat of Peter the first Bishop of Rome.

The Apostles were the first Bishops, evangelizition to specific territories, establishing churches as then traveled their region and ordaining presbyters (priests)to continue whe work of the church.

Pope is a term of endearment which developed over the years for the Bishop of Rome. It is short for Papa.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

43m ago

Your understanding of grammar is incorrect.

I referenced non-Catholic positions, and you took them as being mine.

You are wrong on what my position is, and no word of mine justifies your error.

I am a Catholic, even if we don’t agree on who is the Pope.

Either you are so allergic to me because I am creationist and against Bergoglio that you are willing to attribute to me any anti-Catholic stance I even mention as that of someone else, or you have a more general reading comprehension problem.

My question was about what non-Catholics believed, not about what I believe. My explanation to you was about what non-Catholics believe, not about what I believe. Got it this time?

Al Lundy

Just now

Sorry if I got your post wrong. It does not read as clearly as you perceive it.

What does being a creationist have to do with one’s opinion of the current Pope? One stance has nothing to do with the other.

Please be polite or be deleted.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

“What does being a creationist have to do with one’s opinion of the current Pope? One stance has nothing to do with the other.”

With a bit better reading skills than you seem to have - is this polite enough - I was giving two guesses on why you were so allergic to me that you were misreading the previous comment.

Apparently

it was not polite enough for him, since he now deleted the comments under his answer - to my question.

I am sorry I did perhaps in haste misread his question "What does being a creationist have to do with one’s opinion of the current Pope?" as the more relevant one "What does being a creationist have to do with one’s opinion of who is the current Pope?" - by speaking of a certain man as "Bergoglio" I think it should be clear I do not refer to him as "Pope Francis", that is, I do not consider he is the Pope./HGL

Fighting Totalitarian takeovers?

"Just war doctrine attempts to define situations wherein the waging of war becomes a moral necessity. It lays out criteria by which a Christian is intended to determine whether or not a specific war was entered into and is conducted in a virtuous manner, that killing becomes a moral necessity. The doctrine was developed by theologians of great influence in much of non-Orthodox Western Christianity, such as Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas. This principle was the underpinning of Roman Catholic doctrinal support for the Crusades, presumably including the Fourth Crusade."

Pope Innocent III certainly thought that the war he was planning against the Saracens was just: not that the sack of Constantinople, which he had expressly forbidden, was; though he took advantage of that injustice after it was committed. A doctrine does not cease to be true because it can be or even has been misapplied.

"By contrast, Orthodox Christianity has never developed an explicit "just war" doctrine, and the weight of Tradition is that the taking of human life is never a morally edifying act, although circumstances may require that such an act be taken, it would only be as an alternative to an even greater evil."

The Roman Catholic doctrine about just war IS precisely that war is only just when the alternative is a greater evil, i e an extremely unjust "peace" tantamount to slavery under robbers or something like that. It may be added that one of the criteria is a reasonable hope to really avoid the evils greater than those of not fighting.